Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What ever happened to the transhumanists?

gizmodo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 448 posts

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#291

Post by Emma_Goldman »

yarg wrote: post #229
jeremysalwen wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> trans people make body modifications that don't prioritize my values (fertility) Doesn't seem like a very strong argument that it doesn't fit into the cyberpunk ethos. Modifying your body for reasons you care about seems very cyberpunk, and exactly the sort of thing that other people would have moral qualms over, especially if they don't share your values. Certainly the technology could be improved for people who d…

A disingenuously paraphrasing quote? Sure thing. But I'm not espousing my values, but values vital to the continuation of life. Values that have been around for thousands of millions of years. Perhaps there's the potential for this to change, but it'll just be fertility in another form.

>"But I'm not espousing my values, but values vital to the continuation of life."

There are no self-grounding values. You cannot objectively justify why fertility is the overriding value here, rather than, say, fairness, liberty or anything else. So yes, you are absolutely espousing your values. If you want to make an argument, make it, don't pretend it's self-evident.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#292

Post by the_omegist »

axblount wrote: post #220
agileAlligator wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I still regularly encounter people who are spitting angry against transgender folks and then later in the conversation will completely unironically talk about how much they love the cyberpunk genre. There is a difference between messing with your body and augmenting it. Transhumanists generally believe in augmenting the human body with cybernetic parts, not changing the body's internal chemistry.

Then how do you explain common transhumanist ideas like nootropics and biohacking? I think the line you've drawn is a bit arbitrary.

Indeed, I don't think the issue is with the use of chemicals or not.

But about, as the parent pointed, improvement. Even in a transhumanist society, someone with eyes on its feet or a mechanical arm without any usefulness would be regarded as stupid or mentally ill.

Not all modifications are good &/or transhumanists.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#293

Post by LesZedCB »

the_omegist wrote: post #278
LesZedCB wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, you just disagree with them being happy even if it makes them infertile. classic intellectually dishonest HN concern troll

The classical consumerist hedonist mentality : if they are happy then who can say anything about that ? Well it seems you're the one trolling here. If you deny the right to people to have opinions and judgments based on their beliefs about anything they wish, you're doing worse than you complain about.

i am not denying any right, i have neither authority nor power. we all have equal right to comment and disagree.

though you are right, i am kinda a hedonist. do you mourn for me, or lament the condition I would bring upon civilization, right before chicxulub blows us up? haha.

don't worry, i have no power offline either.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#294

Post by mise_en_place »

fzeroracer wrote: post #281
mise_en_place wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's arguing with bad faith and framing the argument incorrectly IMO. Nobody is " against trans " people, whatever that means. Many are against children joining that lifestyle, which may result in irreparable harm to the child. As an adult, I am on androgen replacement therapy but I am also very careful with it, regularly checking my labs to make sure I don't torch my liver in the process. I can make informed decis…

> That's arguing with bad faith and framing the argument incorrectly IMO. Nobody is " against trans " people I don't know how you can say that unironically when places like my current state (Texas) have been doing everything in their power to be against trans people. These lifestyle arguments remind me a lot of the exact same stuff people said about anyone gay, that they thought it caused irreparable harm and spread…

Some aspects of subcultures within people who identify as gay end up spreading disease, in certain contexts. Why is monkeypox so prevalent now? Did the virus decide to hop continents?

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#295

Post by the_omegist »

daoist_shaman wrote: post #6

I used to identify as a transhumanist and believed that technology could do no harm. I was an adolescent donning rose-colored glasses, with a burning passion for science, technology, and improvement of our species. Only after an electrical engineering degree, 10-15 years of more wisdom, and dabbling in biohacking have I realized that we really have no clue about the massive deleterious impacts that technology has on…

> I believe humanity needs to pump the brakes and take a critical step back to evaluate the damage we’ve caused. I hope that it isn’t too late to try to fix what we’ve destroyed.

What are you talking about ? You mention your engineering degree and experience to give you some authority but then you ruin this by saying what a 5yrs old kid could have said (sorry if it's harsh).

Humanity won't "pump the brakes" because it never did it & never will. No one wants to go live back in caves. Do you really imagine 1000 yrs from now technology staying at its current level? Would it be a nice thing ? No. Not for me.

I don't see mankind as beavers : we can and should aim for the highest achievements and progress. If in the way damages are made, they will be repaired later on. That's my view.

Of course, during this journey, the less damage made the better. But this kind of Luddite mentality is only seen in privileged western societies.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#296

Post by Teever »

kbenson wrote: post #275
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO it's in a trough on the hype curve. Tech needs to improve before it'll rise again. You're assuming that the technology will still be attractive even as other technologies improve in parallel or as we learn more about how the use of technology effects people. The article mentions RNA vaccines are partially transhuman, but I'm not sure I buy that. Maybe my concept is wrong, but the perception I got was always mo…

> We are already at the point where people go on tech cleanses, your technology gives you screen time reports so you can make sure you are not using it too much, people are abandoning social networks. We are literally trying to use computers less. That's just it though, those screen time reports are because people are forced to consume things through tech that forces them to be immobile and looking at a small screen…

That's exactly it.

We're not trying to use computers less, we're trying to be used less by computers, specifically someone else's computers that they've so pervasively embedded into society through monopolistic practices that would make Rockefeller blush.

The failure here isn't technology, the failure is human greed and regulators inability to mitigate it.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#297

Post by fzeroracer »

mise_en_place wrote: post #294
fzeroracer wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's arguing with bad faith and framing the argument incorrectly IMO. Nobody is " against trans " people I don't know how you can say that unironically when places like my current state (Texas) have been doing everything in their power to be against trans people. These lifestyle arguments remind me a lot of the exact same stuff people said about anyone gay, that they thought it caused irreparable harm and spread…

Some aspects of subcultures within people who identify as gay end up spreading disease, in certain contexts. Why is monkeypox so prevalent now? Did the virus decide to hop continents?

The reason why monkeypox is so prevalent right now is because the way it spreads isn't limited to gay sex, despite what the mangled messaging around says. It spreads by any sort of close contact (including bedding and clothing), and there have been many straight individuals turned away from testing because they weren't deemed 'at risk' despite them having all of the classical signs of monkeypox. So it ends up spreading among crowds like swingers and what not most publicly, while privately it spreads among the more traditional crowds that end up not getting tested.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#298

Post by the_omegist »

jholman wrote: post #132
photochemsyn wrote: post #91

To become transhuman or posthuman, you'd first have to understand what it is to be human, and we're not anywhere near that. Some of the enthusiasm about the hopes for such a transition were raised by this: > "The Human Genome Project finally released a complete human genome sequence in 2003, in a project that took 13 years to complete." The most remarkable thing about that accomplishment was how little it resulted in…

> To become transhuman or posthuman, you'd first have to understand what it is to be human What? Why? I'm post-adolescent (at least biologically, please don't bring up all of my emotional immaturity), and I still don't (and definitely didn't then) understand what it is to be adolescent. I live in a post-feudal society, and while I think we understand a few things about what it means to be feudal, I wouldn't bet on us…

Came to say the same thing with the same post-adolescent argument ;)

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#299

Post by fastball »

fzeroracer wrote: post #287
yarg wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't feel that's a fair comparison. The transgender community needs to stop pushing the notion that it's healthy and desirable; it's not - it's a devastating hormonal/fertility disorder. We can't even look into the extent to which the androgenisation of humanity is the consequence of the pollutants that we've introduced into the environment. Now, comparing this to trans-humanist body mods - how many of thos…

There are a million things more dangerous to the continuation of the human race than a few people willingly becoming sterile to solve other issues with their body. For decades we were shoving lead into gasoline and poisoning an entire generation for the sake of more money, for example. And the 'androgenization of humanity' seems like some nonsense, considering there's zero data or otherwise to back that up.

> a few people willingly becoming sterile to solve other issues with their body.

Most of the controversy around trans issues that I've seen would not exist if this was the only dimension to it.

Re: What ever happened to the transhumanists?

#300

Post by dragonwriter »

the_omegist wrote: post #286
dragonwriter wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> . Nobody is " against trans " people, whatever that means What it means is “actively seeking to eliminate trans people, including by the simple expedient of killing them by means such as prohibiting care that is proven to greatly reduce suicidality in, especially, young trans people.” And lots of people—indeed, entire state governments in the US—are “against trans people”.

> “actively seeking to eliminate trans people, Put it such extreme and dishonest way, reducing sugar in food it an attempt to eliminate obese people... No , the attribute is not the object. > indeed, entire state governments in the US—are “against trans people”. So you deny the rights of a community of people to decide what they deem legal or illegal ? All this for the personal benefit of a (literal) couple of people…

> So you deny the rights of a community of people to decide what they deem legal or illegal ?

That’s irrelevant. Whether a community has a right to pass laws based on the fact that they are against trans people is not the issue. Whether people are. manifestly against trans people is the issue (and they very clearly are.)

Post reply on HN